Wine Merchants across the UK are, according to the EU’s fave PR mouthpiece the Financial Times, having to add £1.50 to each bottle of wine imported from the EU as a result of Brexit. Natch the poodles on the pink paper tell their rapidly declining number of readers that this is another disaster caused by Brexit. That fecker Farage and we dirty 17.4 million dirty, smelly, stupid xenophobes in the sticks have another crime to account for. But hang on?
The price of a bottle of plonk from outside the EU is not going up at all. And thus this price rise is not so much a result of Brexit but as of the response of those countries still trapped within the Evil Empire to Brexit. They are punishing we silly Brits.
As ever, this is an own goal for the EU. For my pal Simon Cawkwell, aka Evil Knievil, who keeps 24 vintners in business with his purchase of top-end wines, this makes bugger all difference. Adding £1.50 to the price of a £30 bottle is of no concern to those who can afford £30 bottles. But for those of us who drink less rarified vintages, this is a kick in the pocket book. Suddenly a £7.50 bottle becomes a £9 one.
Brits drink c1.7 billion bottles of wine a year and, at the moment, about three quarters of that comes from the EU. However, there are some very acceptable substitutes for the lower end French, Spanish and Italian wines, produced in places such as Australia, the US, Chile, South Africa and New Zealand. The losers from the EU’s madness will not be impoverished Brits but their own citizens.
Firstly, we Brits will see this as another example of EU spite towards us, another punishment beating for those who dared to say no to our masters in Brussels. Will we respond with gratitude or by saying feck you? I think we all know the answer to that. Secondly, since there are great alternatives to EU wine, why on earth do the Frogs et al think we will not switch? The big winners from this madness are wine producers outside of the EU.
As it happens, I am on a bit of a health kick. Well all these things are all relative. But right now I am down to one or two glasses of red a week. I now look on with great envy as the Mrs and Joshua tuck into a chocolate biscuit or two and my carb intake has plunged. But notwithstanding that, noting that the Mrs has polished off the last of the case of Montepulciano ordered ahead of the visit of daughter Olaf at Christmas, I have just ordered six bottles of 19 Crimes, an Australian red whose name, I believe, celebrates the various reasons so many folks were given a one way free trip to the land of High Culture two centuries ago.
I see that the grape used to make Rioja, another fave of this household, is widely used in Australia as well. At some stage, folks within the EU will realise that the game their masters are playing is hurting the people of the EU, not the wicked Britishers. It is almost as if the Evil Empire has a death wish.